


it's never felt so real, no, it's never felt so right

by secretsarenotforfree



Category: Hart of Dixie
Genre: 50 Kiss Prompts, A Variety Pack of Them, Except - Plot Twist! - I Did A Random 16, F/M, Jack for Jacqueline and that's the tea, Kisses, Some Zade!Brand Sexy Times, Tooth Rotting Fluff, i know the kids name is TBD but i'm not writing that, i lost control of this several times, or 17 idk it's late
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:40:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29580381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretsarenotforfree/pseuds/secretsarenotforfree
Summary: His hand is braced on the wall behind her, leaning down so they could reach each other's mouths with ease. The thumb on the other hand presses on Zoe’s lower lip right amidst her giggles. “Oh I’m so glad you find my discomfort hilarious.”
Relationships: Annabeth Nass/George Tucker, Lemon Breeland/Lavon Hayes, Zoe Hart/Wade Kinsella
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	it's never felt so real, no, it's never felt so right

**Author's Note:**

> i stumbled across this:
> 
> https://kashimalin-fanfiction.tumblr.com/post/178524845380/50-kiss-prompts/amp
> 
> about four days ago, and it took over my mind so much i've basically written straight through since then for these two yee haw kids slskg. i'm trying to be kinder to myself as a writer, so they're all as long or short as i wanted, and i picked a few of the prompts that i creatively connected with immediately. and here we are! i like some more than others but they all getting published to NIGHT.
> 
> title from 'just a kiss' by lady a




_we should be_

_alone together_

Knowing the two of them, Strip Halo goes just about as well as you would expect.

Zoe’s never been bad at making guy friends, but she’d never quite grown close enough to any of them (before Lavon) that warranted her ever spending a lot of time with video games. Her idea of unwinding after a long way included a dry Chardonnay and the most up to date medical journal that she could get sent to backwoods Alabama. As precise and skilled her small hands and fingers were, they weren’t engineered for hitting X and L2 at the same time. It just wasn’t her gift.

Wade, on the other hand, was fairly proficient. She had no doubt that between the bits of intelligence of his head was some sun soaked video game knowledge, but it was still _Wade_. She couldn’t imagine he was an expert, even if he was twenty times better than her.

Not that, even including everything, it was _fair._

Because she was playing Strip Halo. With Wade Kinsella. And now that she’s fallen so far off the wagon she’s tumbling under it with him, she knows exactly why she had to resist for so long, because he was a _drug._ He was scary difficult to quit and required way too many marshmallows to resist, and maybe Zoe was a little tired of resisting. Maybe, okay, he also wasn’t the worst person to be around, and was pretty damn likable. Pretty damn likable in a lot of ways she never expected him to be.

So she gives it her best shot because, no matter what else, she hates giving him the win.

“So, I have a question.”

“Mmmm. Doc if you don’t pay more attention, I’m going to be whupping your butt six ways from Monday _and_ Sunday.”

He was nice enough to give her a couple practice rounds, but they didn’t help her very much in the long run. Zoe begged off the bigger ticket items at the start by considering her beloved Manolo Blanik wedges as two separate articles of clothing, but strip Halo hadn’t really been made for girls in dresses. Wade consistently had the upper hand by … _existing,_ basically, and she knew she would be a goner. Her already barely functional skills had taken a hit from the sheer heat of his jean clad thigh right next to hers. Zoe was a woman of science and all, but there should really be some sort of study conducted on whatever black magic he had. Whatever it was that made him some sort of sinful center of gravity that eliminated women’s clothing in a mile radius. Probably more, if he wasn’t stopped.

And also maybe, he’s lost one round due to a total fluke and Zoe hated herself for it but he rocked a tank top like no one else she’d ever seen. The amount of sneak peeks she’d taken, mid game due to the flex of a homegrown bicep or the young god like curve of his gorgeous shoulders...it’s a miracle she wasn’t completely naked already.

Zoe yanks her gaze away from the strong veins in his wrists and collects herself. “I was just wondering what the experts thought about All or Nothing Strip Halo.” Her gaze is affixed on the screen on purpose but she can feel the snap of his hazel eyes on her even without the visual proof. 

“I’m listening.”

“Woman of science here. You’re a man of...well not of science, and not a man most times either -”

“Doc you know good and well how much man I really am -”

“ _Wade_. Let me finish. I am just of the opinion that I’m not going to get any better at the Halo part of this tonight, so. One more game? Winner takes all?” She poses, lips pursed a little and gaze deceptively innocent when she finally turns to him. He’s got one of those patented Wade Kinsella™ grins on his stupidly handsome face, that grows from one side before it spreads all the way and flashes those dimples and makes you wonder how anyone could be called golden but him. Zoe feels heat rush from her head to all the extremities that had been happily reacting to him since…well, they never hadn’t.

“Alright. Sounds like a plan.” He kicks his legs a smidge wider, jeans so life worn they were as inviting as his bed always managed to be, and leans forward. There’s no good reason for the very spread to make her feel any kind of way, but Zoe knows exactly what he’s giving space to breathe and she wants very badly to give it _that space_. “This one’s for all the bacon in the barn.”

If her head wasn’t so turned at the anticipation of what her swift defeat would result in, she probably would’ve given him shit for that, but Zoe had a game to lose. Oh, _win._ She means. Kind of. Not all. So she just rolls her eyes and squares tiny shoulders and gives the buttons all she got. Mashing wasn’t the way she preferred her potatoes but it was a method she had no problem with deploying.

Not that it did any good, because she died in the space of a few minutes and, and Zoe would _only_ admit this at gunpoint, or maybe at the threat of a franken version of Burt Reynolds, but her fingers tremble when she put the controller down. Wade clicks his tongue, whatever was on his TV screen forgotten about by them both when he turns more fully to her. “Tough luck, Doc.”

She tries to sit as primly as she can on his ages old couch, hands fisted in her lap so as not to touch him. “Oh come on, are you really going to be a sore winner?”

“Oh no. I’m the opposite of a sore winner. In fact, I’m such an amazin’ winner that I’m going to get my prize all by myself. You don’t have to do anything.” Wade’s voice drops a couple of octaves, she would _swear_ , any word made filthy by the dark flaring in his pupils and that croon of an accent. 

After almost two years living in Bluebell, she was pretty used to Alabama tinge in everyone's speech, but Wade managed to _do_ something to it. Layer it with honey and promises that he would only be too happy to keep for you.

It’s only been a couple weeks since their little bet had ended their temporary sex pact, but holy hell, had Zoe missed kissing him. More than she had ever expected in a million years. Enough so that suddenly all the energy she’d been using to keep back from him suddenly breaks and she’s fisting her hand in his t-shirt and yanking his mouth to hers. It’s fierce, and unyielding, and maybe her pride is still a little wounded from incredibly casual way he’s stripped her of all her layers and laid her bare with his words at the practice. Like it was casual, the way that Wade saw all the parts of her, especially when she didn’t want him to. Like she still had so much to learn about him. 

He gets her horizontal on the couch so fast Zoe can’t even completely follow how, but her legs part welcomingly for his weight between them and somehow he’s doing something bonkers with his tongue while unzipping the back of her dress which, _wow_ what a multitasker. She starts laughing a little when Wade growls and bites hard enough on her bottom lip that she actually gasps into the soothing lick he leaves right after.

They don’t make it to bed until rounds one and two have been conducted on the couch. And the rug. (Twice.)

  
  
  





_baby grow_

_old with me_

“I leave Bluebell for one day! _One day!_ Not even a full day, just ten freaking hours!”

By now the original oak walls, magnolia trees waving out front, and every person in and out the door of the practice of the last five years or so, were quite familiar with the particular pitch of Doctor Zoe Hart’s yelling. It didn’t stop Brick from rolling his eyes, or Wade from tipping his head back against the exam table and sighing a little through his smile, but at least it wasn’t _foreign_ to them. And the moment Wade had walked in the door earlier that day, both Bluebell men had been expecting it.

“Now calm down Zoe, you’re gonna wake your little munchkin.” Brick projects out to her from the exam room in his gruff voice, finishing the various hooks and straps of the sling. “You’d think you were dyin’ or something.”

“Zero to a hundred is the only way she knows how to live.” Wade swings his legs over the side of the exam table, winches a little at the roll out of his shoulders. The long patterned dark sapphire of his wife’s dress swirls a little problematically around her wedges when she storms into the exam, dark eyes big and a little wild and stressed. “Hey, baby.”

Pausing only a minute to kiss Jack’s cheek, the little boy sound asleep in his carrier to the sound of excitement as usual, Zoe heads directly to her husband. Instinct tells him he’s about to get lightly slapped, each frustration hurting only his pride, but she surprises him. She cups his scruffy cheeks in her hands and peppers little concerned kisses all over his face, little hearts from his lips on his eyelids, forehead, tip of his nose and each dimple. “What the hell happened?”

She looks beautiful. Zoe always does, to him, whether her makeup or lipstick or outfit is up to her standards or comfy and casual, and sometimes it’s hard to believe that she’s his. All his, not just for now, but his _forever._ Funny, the way life worked out. Giving him so many things he never thought he’d be deserving enough to have.

Wade wraps a big hand around her petite wrist and wishes his other arm wasn’t constrained by the thin blue fabric keeping his arm, and by connection the real problem, his _own_ wrist, tight to him. “Nothing big, I promise. I was unloading our lunchtime delivery and got my hand in a bit of a twist.”

Brick scoffs a little, shaking his grey head. “A little more power in that pull, son, and you’d be on the wrong side of a Grade II sprain. I would tell you more instructions other than, of course, keeping movement there to a _minimum_ over the next couple of weeks, but you do seem to have a personal doctor so I’ll leave you to it. I’m just gonna get you some ice, partly so I don’t have to see this.” He tugs gently on Jack’s fat leg before leaving, a motion so familiar to the little boy with the lashes he got from his daddy spread over his cheek, causing a baby perfect smile. Leaving the two behind, Brick makes sure that his back hides the fond, fatherly look on his face that he can't control.

She tilts her head against his, the familiar and gentle smell of her Chanel perfume wafting over Wade. Zoe hasn’t let go of his face yet, running her thumb of the shell of his ear, and if her eyes were open she’d be looking right into her husbands soft gaze. “Be more _careful_ ,” she mumbles, the light rub of his thumb along her pulse point immediately calming. “Wanda calling me to say you picked up Jack from daycare early because you got hurt? I was worried.”

They’ve been married for almost two years now, but it still does something funny to his insides when she gets all concerned and a little crazy over him. He pulls one of her tiny hands away with a grasp that shines with his silver wedding ring, and presses his lips to her open palm. 

Wade might be the one with a boo-boo, but somehow it makes them both feel better. “I promise.”

  
  


17.

_you and i_

_go together like_

Getting their romantic shit together smack dab in the middle of the coldest time of the year didn’t really say a lot about their timing, but Zoe doesn’t very much care. This is too much fun.

She’d discovered this, after they started sleeping with each other on a regular basis, in a way - Zoe ran cold. Wade existed hot. Figuratively and literally, temperatures were high whenever he was around. Every mile of velvet gold could be depended upon to feel just as sun soaked as the place he’d been home grown in, for better for worse.

When dusk failed to bring down Bluebells temperatures and he wound up, as always, with his arm around her waist, it drove Zoe nuts. Times like now, she wouldn’t trade it for the world. 

Times like now, she drives her petite hands under each layer, hoodie, flannel and t-shirt, and Wade swears so hard there’s a break in their kiss. “Holy Christ woman, are you impersonatin’ a block of ice? Why does it _feel_ like you’ve been cheating on me with Jack Frost.”

Undeterred, Zoe burrows her hands further, running her fingers against the lower back muscles that flinched so slightly under her touch, grin widening. They’re behind the _Rammer Jammer_ on his break, and she hadn’t gotten to say goodbye to him this morning because of the early hour of his shift. He’s disgustingly, illegally cute in that shoal colored hoodie, and crowded this close into her against the building the smell of him emanates off it in the crisp air. It's just the same as it was during the race, a memory that felt so recent and yet forever ago, and it’s like the rest of him. Something about the clean, vaguely woodsy scent making you feel like you were filling your lungs with rich, sundrenched air by just being with him.

Even if there’s an uncommon bite to the air, the heat had been going inside of the bar and grill hadn’t quite faded from Wade. When she’d teased him about his scruffy hair earlier and carded it back from his forehead, it was the slightest bit damp at the roots and it shouldn’t have been charming, but it was. His hand is braced on the wall behind her, leaning down so they could reach each other's mouths with ease. The thumb on the other hand presses on Zoe’s lower lip right amidst her giggles. “Oh I’m so glad you find my discomfort hilarious.”

Zoe wrinkles her nose and pulls him even closer with her cold hands, his thigh slipping between hers so that she’s almost being supported more on him than her own booted heels. “Shut up, you know you love it.”

The naughty, slow heated grin that he dissolves into is too pretty to be legal. “You’re just lucky your lips aren’t as refrigerated as the rest of you, thanks to me.”

She nods, her eyes hooded when Wade gets close to her lips again, chin tilting up. “It’s the least you could do.” 

It’s a wonder she could be cold at all when he poured fire into her bones with every lick of his tongue.

  
  


46.

_no one knows me like you_

_nothing i wouldn't do_

In the big scheme of things, it’s not that long.

It really isn’t.

It’s a week, in Raleigh, with Jesse. His brother’s getting married, to a nice enough girl who really loved aquariums, and he and Wade don’t talk more than once every couple of months, but his future wife is a stickler for tradition. She couldn’t imagine that her future husband's family wouldn’t be in their wedding party.

(Wade had been in a foul mood the evening after the phone call, tense and quiet in that uncharacteristic way that always made Zoe wonder about the little boy he’d used to be. She didn’t explicitly tell him how proud she was that he agreed, but she brought him a beer and sat in his lap and stroked the back of his neck until he let loose of the heavy breath that Jesse always made rattle around, angry and hurt, in his chest.)

Normally, Zoe and Jack would be going with him, but Lemon’s been having a hard start to her pregnancy and Zoe would feel better if she made sure she finished out the first month with her on hand than otherwise. Five days, until they’d join him in North Carolina, and they’d all be together again. At three and a half Jack was more concerned about whether or not Daddy was going to need Burt 2, a bedraggled stuffed alligator that had been a gift from Lavon before they’d even left the hospital with him, so he wouldn’t be scared to be alone.

“Are you sure?” Jack’s eyes were a shade more hazel than his fathers, but the soft mahogany curls that Wade ruffles are all from Zoe. “I don’t, I don’t really wanna send him, but without Mama and me. I don’t want you to be sad.”

Wade adjusts his hold on his son, strong and easy grip well used to it by now. “I don’t even think Burt 2 could make me stop missing you two. How about he _and_ you make sure Mama’s not lonely, instead?”

When he pulls them into a three person hug, Jack falling into laughter at Zoe’s tickles, she fills her heart with the sounds of her family and reminds herself that just because it’s the longest they’ve been apart since they first got back together doesn’t mean that she can’t handle it.

His flight leaves at eight AM and the airport is a solid hour drive away, but it’s almost four and she doesn’t want to stop kissing him. Moonlight slides heavy with humidity through the whistled cracks in their window and falls on his hands on her ass, her waist, her hair, as they kiss deeply. There are two pillows under Wade’s head and the silk of her pajama bottoms still catches on his scratchy knuckles when he cups his hand higher up and Zoe presses further into him. One of her arms is tucked horizontal on his chest, the other skirting the back of her hand on his cheek. Even if she hadn’t known he was still grumpy about events, the facial hair growing thicker and dirty blonde on his handsome face would’ve told that particular truth to her.

“I’m gonna miss you, Doc.” Wade clears his throat, voice a little thicker than usual. Accent stronger, like it became when he forgot himself. “More than you know.”

A tiny wrinkle appears between her dark brows that he soothes away with a thumb, and when she moves her knees on either side of him a little higher and funnels her hands between his skin and their bed so she can hold tight to his shoulders, he is really, really disliking the thought of letting her go. 

“It’s only five days.” Zoe reminds him, nosing his jaw, but there’s a ghost of uncertainty in it. “Look, just - you know that I get worried. About things, about you. Mostly about you. So don’t do anything dumb until I can get there with you, okay? Don’t like, pull the emergency plane door open, or get kicked out of the hotel, or let Jesse get too far under your skin.”

Wade studies her, each dark butterfly lash and smattering of light freckles and huge, missing him eyes, and he nods. “Five days.” He declares as if to remind not only them, but the world in general, and gives Zoe a kiss that lingers long enough to make his upcoming absence a little easier to take.

10.

_i’m still a fool for you_

_and there’s a million reasons why_

“Morning!”

  
“Morning, _again_.” Wade turns slightly from his position at the island to proffer his cheek up for Zoe’s playful mwah, spoon with baby food still aloft in hand. “You get my note?”

“Yes! Thanks, I really did need my beauty rest.” She's perky and alert and looks ten different kinds of adorable. Wade thinks Lord help him because if Zoe did actually get any prettier it might be too much for him to take.

“If beauty rest is what you were getting, I don’t think you were sleeping long enough.” Lemon, queenly in that way of hers even when drowning in Lavon’s huge bathrobe, sweeps into the kitchen with a cup of coffee she had undoubtedly received in bed. Zoe Hart, beloved town doctor, best friend, wife, and mother of a not quite one year old, maturely sticks out her tongue at her nemesis-turned-sort-of-family and scoops said not quite one year old out of his high chair, cooing. 

“I was in the middle of feeding him.” Wade says rather plainly, amusedly already defeated. “Guess he was done.”

“You’d best get Disney and take a page out of Sleeping Beauty’s book, then, Lemon!” Zoe chirped, easily carrying her baby boy while she snags a few slices of bacon. “Now if you’ll excuse me for just a moment, I need to yell at Lavon.”

Lemon makes a face at her over her cup of coffee. “You need to yell at Lavon, _while_ holding your fifteen month old son?”

The small doctor smooths down an unruly lock of Jack’s hair, the baby babbling extremely familiar to the three adults in the spacious kitchen. “Jack, tell Auntie Lemon that you’re Mama’s secret weapon!”

“Jack, tell your Mama that she’s diabolical but still not as much as me!” Lamon parroted right afterwards, even with the bubbly tone of voice that snuck in whenever she was talking to or about the only other baby than Ethel that she loved wholeheartedly. “Last I saw, he was at the side door talking to the Sheriff. But you didn’t hear it from me.”

Zoe places her hand on her heart, nodding in her head and pressing her lips together in a mocking version of fealty. “Someday, I too will reach Lemon Breeland supervillian status. For now, I can moonlight as a sidekick. Brb!”

“Zoe, no one says B-R-B out loud. It’s not 2011 anymore, you dork.” For his troubles, Wade still gets a brief, pleasant little kiss before Zoe leaves the room. 

Her “Thanks, but nobody asked you!” trails behind her, hips swishing in tight jeans, and he has no choice, really, but to chuckle to himself. Or at least, he was doing it in complete contentment until he sensed Lemons ultra-powerful-gaze on him. 

“What?”

“Oh, nothing.” Lemon opens the refrigerator door, gives a shrug and one of those sideways smiles that makes her look more mischievous than anyone probably alive. “It’s just. Y’all are kind of cute.”

He tugs a grape off of the fruit dish and launches it at the back of Lemon’s head, not even having the shame to have burning cheeks, because fuck yeah. Wade and his _wife_ were kind of cute. They were a lot cute. 

Wade just wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he hadn’t, in fact, flung the grape.

  
  


24.

_don’t know if i could find someone_

_who do me like you_

She wants him so bad she can’t breathe.

Zoe’s a doctor, she knows how hormones work - she knows how individually wonky they get in women near their time of the month, and none of this is from left field. She’s out of the red zone of danger by a couple of just-in-case days, and the short doctor thought it a perfectly valid reward to go to Wade’s house and climb his smirking ass like a tree. 

In a rather damning set of facts, Zoe’s familiar with frustration from all levels of life.

Except, she’s never been this freaking achy and wanting and _desperate_ before when everything she wanted was in arms reach and yet not close enough. If she was going to be accurate, she should probably say within _legs_ reach, but she lost proper control over the English language one orgasm ago. Or two, that hit her so fast and hard they faded into each other and Zoe had fully lost the ability to be able to tell them apart.

Zoe needed Wade inside her like _yesterday_. Even if where he was right now was good too, though, so good. So insanely, over the moon, _good_ with her calves curled around his shoulders and him sucking on her clit so sweetly that some part of her almost wants to cry. Wade dots purposeful kitten licks up and down her slickness, fingers rhythmic in their push-pull inside her. He’s so sexy he’s _too_ sexy, something in Zoe’s brain manages to string together, and for now that’s her sexy. For now, until the afterglows faded and she tells him that this is never happening again, she was free lose her mind on the sea of pleasure he created so skillfully for her. For now, he was hers.

And that meant that Zoe had things that she wanted, and she wanted them now.

“Wade. _Wa -_ ohhhhh, God. Oh god.” Her toes curl, inner thighs sensitive and twitching against the intentional scrape of his two day beard growth along it. He changes his angle and adds a curve to his middle finger and she forgets her name. She forgets everything she’s ever learned ever, and he might actually be _sexing_ braincells away from her. 

(If they had to go, she was totally fine with it being this way.)

“What was that?” Wade dragged the whorls of his fingertips along the top of her thigh with his other hand, shooting sparkling hazel eyes up at her. There was no greater king in this world than Wade Kinsella in the midst of a really good time, ruler of his domain and sharing his considerable riches with her. The sensation sends electricity straight the ball of heat he was causing in the heart of her and Zoe can’t help but squirm a little, grabbing one of his pillows to scream frustratingly into. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

“I hate you so much right now.” She says fiercely, the w fading into a tiny mewl when his thumb went back to its part time job of drawing infinity shapes onto her bundle of nerves that made Zoe’s brain fritz completely out.

“Oh, do you now?”

  
“Yes.” Zoe snaps. “I hate you so much that if you don’t want to incur any more of my wrath you will get inside me _right_ or so help me - “

“So help you what?” Okay, so he clearly doesn’t believe her anger, which is foolish because obviously she’s incensed, but he does make a little growling noise in his chest that sends tingles through every part of her. He does slip her legs off his shoulders and pull his whole glorious, naked self back up to her level before cleaning her taste of his hands with his tongue, the cool gold of his necklace dragging as a gentle touch along her bare stomach. “No, I wanna know. Tell me, Doc.”

Zoe chokes back a tiny scream of frustration and kind of surges at him with her arms, wrapping them around his neck and digging her hands into his messy hair and pulling him into her. Her one tiny victory in the maze of lust he somehow got her locked in whenever he got his hands on her is the moan that leaks out deep and low between his lips at her ferocious, hungry kisses. They’re all over each other, facing each other on the bed, bodies lengthwise and straining and Zoe thinks she’s going to burst at the seams.

“Get inside me.” She gasps, closer to a hiss than anything between presses of their lips. “Fuck me right now, Wade Kinsella, or I’ll do it myself.” Zoe thinks he’s saying something about how he would love to see her try, but while he's saying it he’s hitching her leg around his hip and when he pushes inside it feels so good she thinks Bluebell, Alabama might have a slice of heaven in it after all.

11.

_because of you_

_i’m not the man i was before you_

The hospital is quiet, but not cold.

Or maybe it would be, or it had felt like it before, but it didn’t tonight. Zoe didn’t feel any of it. Just a bright warmth in her chest that glowed in the shape of her new son, snuggled up tight to her, swaddled and asleep.

She couldn’t believe that a mere twenty four hours ago, there had been a life without him. Without this. Without his perfect smell and perfect face and the incredible tide of emotions in her heart when she even _thought_ about him and wow, had she and Wade did good. They had done _so_ good, in leading to this little one.

Her hair still curls from the wedding hairdo Tansy’s jittery fingers had done for her. A soft glow from above Zoe’s bed made an inviting haven in the room aside from the changing table in the corner, the lack of other lighting making the night sky from their hospital windows stand out, and it’s a beautiful scene, and Zoe feels it, and she swears that doesn’t make her self centered if it's just plain the truth.

Any picture with her son in it was going to be the prettiest thing she’d ever seen.

A soft snick interrupts the low beeps of the monitors, and Zoe amends her statement. Prettiest thing she’d ever seen, since him. The bag Lavon got them from his place had procured the light blue t-shirt he wore now, but it was the look in his eyes and his smile that wrapped around her ribs and told her she’d remember it well into their years together. Forever, maybe. He pulls the chair with his stuff closer to the bed and toes off his shoes and socks, getting in bed next to her. It takes a moment to shift, to figure out how they fit (and wasn’t that ironic) but when they do, it’s _right._ She tucks her knees up a little above his and lets the hand on the arm curled around their son loosen to hold his own.

Zoe’s still sleepy, the tiredness from giving birth still in every line of her small frame, even with the happiness. He’d called it all fooey before her, certain the idea of pregnant women or new mothers _glowing was completely ridiculous,_ but then she rejoiced in giving his life, and every preconceived notion of his, hell. It’s not doubt she’d prove all that right. Wade’s left hand twined with Zoe’s own, his right tucking a long dark strand of her hair behind her ear to kiss her. 

It’s delicate and easy, cotton candy sweetness and warmth that spread through them both. They kissed for several moments before stopping, Zoe’s dark brown eyes blinking open slow. “Hey you.” She smiles and it lights up his world all over again.

“Hey you back.” Wade winds his socked feet with hers and she lets him, the pressure of their hands solid and making her remember the first time they’d done it. The way she’d laced his fingers with his in the doorway of the _Rammer Jammer_ and held his hand for everyone to see. The way the overwhelming rightness of the hold that scared her down to her toes and when she’d hung on for dear life Wade pulled her to him and kissed her exactly the way she needed to be kissed for all her worry to melt away.

He had a particular talent, for that last thing. It was one of the things she loved most about him.

“You doing okay? You need anything?” He checks with a kind of playful worry, but Zoe knows he means every word. You’d think the constant checking would grow pretty old, but for now Zoe still thought it was adorable. 

“No.” She shakes her head a little against the pillow. “I’m good. I’m perfect. I have everything I need right here.”

Wade’s dimples flash at her, and Zoe can’t help but smile again back at the sight of them. “Me too.” He’s leaning in to kiss her again when his clear hazel eyes pop open a bit. “Oh! Shoot, actually - gimme a minute - “ He leans back, twists that well muscled body of his to dig his available arm into his pants pocket, withdrawing a bright red box.

Oh. _Okay._

Technically, they’d been married for hours now, but there had been a lot going on, in Zoe’s defense. It sunk in all over again at the sight of that red velvet, and she couldn’t help the blush that rose on her cheeks. Having all the dreams you hadn’t known you had come true would do that to a person. 

“Is that what I think it is?” Zoe says a little breathlessly, her voice dipping up an octave.

“If you’re thinkin’ it’s the engagement ring that Earl gave to my mom, then yes, it is.”

Oh God. Her hormones were still wacked out and she _married_ Wade Kinsella, the man she’d been hopelessly, impossibly in love with since he broke quarantine like the idiot she knew and ended up adoring. He was presenting her with his _mothers engagement_ ring. They had a _baby boy_ and they were going to love each other for the rest of their lives. 

“Oh, crap.” She whispers, clearing her throat as quietly as she can through the sandpaper suddenly in it. “Oh, I’m not going to cry. Not again.”

Wade’s laugh floats between them, and it doesn’t stop him from thumbing the box open. “How about you look at it first before you start getting weepy, Zoe.”

What the hell is wrong with him? This makes it _so much worse_ because it’s completely stunning. It’s pear shaped and classic and it’s the perfect ring. She couldn’t have chosen better if she’d collaborated with one of her mom’s clients and designed one from scratch. Plus, it was Wade’s _mom’s_ . It meant so much, and it was exactly how she wanted to show the whole, or in this case _their_ whole world that Wade Kinsella was hers and Zoe Hart was his. 

“It’s the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen and I want you to put it on me right now.” Zoe whispers through watery eyes. “ _Right now._ ” He releases her hand to slip it onto her finger and it’s a perfect fit, which is a little too much.

“Did we have the same finger size?”

“Huh?" Wade blinks, having been busy gazing real happy looking at how it shone on her finger. “Oh! No, after Earl gave me the ring, and we came back from New York, I convinced AB to get me your ring size. So I could get it fixed, and all.” He lifts his shoulder in an approximation of a shrug, a big difficult to do in the hospital bed. “I wanted it to feel like yours.”

Zoe pulls strength out of somewhere and keeps the tears down, stuffing the overwhelming feeling back into her heart and out of her tear ducts with sheer force of will if she had to. She was trying to limit the amount of times she cried on her baby's head in his first full day of life. “Do you know that I dig you so much, Wade Kinsella?”

“I had an inkling or two.” He grins, curling his hand around her hip and rubbing her tummy lightly with his thumb. “Also, hear me out, I had a - a thought, when I was getting snacks.”

“Continue.”

“Well, my mom’s name was Jacqueline. And, and. I know we haven’t been able to settle on a name yet, but. I just thought I would throw Jack into the ring. I know it’s simple,” he rushes, lifting his hand off her to gesture, almost as if he’s illustrating his point. “And not fancy or anything, but there it is.”

Zoe smiles at him so long that Wade almost feels a little jittery. “What? Stop looking at me like that.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? Really? Because you can seriously think about it.”

Zoe pulls him closer and sighs, eyes drifting shut again. “I get to choose Jack’s middle name. But...after I wake up again. Deal?”

“Deal.” Wade dips his head down a bit and kisses Zoe on the forehead. “I love you, Zoe Hart.”

“Love you too.” She mumbles, and in a few minutes Jack’s isn’t the only sound of quiet breathing in the room. Wade doesn’t join them in dreamland for another forty some minutes, unable to stop looking at them. Looking at his life, and wondering who kicked his lucky stars into alignment and gifted him with this. And being eternally grateful for it all.

37.

_when it comes to you_

_no, i ain’t got no patience_

“No, seriously! I believe in you this time.”

This is the fourth in arguably very unsuccessfully tries, but she really does believe in him. Zoe’s perched on the countertop, swinging her legs, and making her way through a bag of Hershey Kisses. He burnt the second batch, and if Lavon had been home they would’ve heard something about the smoky smell that would still hang around for a couple hours more. 

Thankfully for them both, Lavon was with Ruby for the weekend, helping her pick an apartment. They had the place to themselves until the next day, and they were taking advantage of the opportunity. Her hair was mussed past any semblance of anything but sex hair and Wade was attempting to bake in his sweatpants. (And _only_ his sweatpants.)

He’s so determined to conquer the recipe that Zoe can’t even lie to herself that the emotions it brings up are anything other than treacherous. 

“I didn’t tinker my dads old Chevy back to life to fail in the face of something dumb like this.” Wade insists, his hazels determined. He’s like if Magic Mike had a baby with a the Food Network and Zoe was loving it. She was lounging in his tank top for a reason, slate green and light orange like the first time he tried, still eased out from their pre-baking round

He’s still in the mixing stage right now, and he’s measured everything ten times. This is the first thing she’s seen Wade concentrate this much on that wasn’t making her come or upping his natural born gift of drink making, and Zoe can’t help but stare at him with happy curiosity. “Are you sure you don’t want any help? I’ve been known to bake a mean box mix of red velvet cupcakes.”

“No, I got it. Wouldn't be a real victory if you helped me cheat." He winks at her, referencing the gumbo competition from so long ago, and she just rolls her eyes and continues to snack. "You know red velvet is just chocolate with a red hairdo, right?” Wade flashes his little shit grin, muscles flexing while he stirred. 

“What's your point?” Zoe retorts, and leans back, focusing on the veins in his arms instead. _Yum._ So yum, in fact, that she doesn’t realize she said it out loud until she feels his gaze on her, awareness prickling over her skin.

“Yum?” He repeats, swiping a finger through the mix to taste. 

Wade _literally_ had her whimpering and scrabbling at the slats on the kitchen door with her hands a few hours ago as hips snapped her into half blissed oblivion. Now, when he misses a tiny bit of cookie dough on his lip, right on top of the freckle Zoe was a big fan of zeroing in on, she gets a finger in the band of his sweatpants. He follows easily enough, but it doesn’t stop her from looking appreciatively down at what hid in the grey fabric, revealed by her tug, before he’s close enough to get her mouth on his. She curls her fingers a little on his face while Zoe flicks out her tongue and tastes the dough, tastes him. His gorgeous chest is rising and falling faster than it had before when she pulls back, his hands on her ribcage, one thumb brushing over her breast.

“Yum.” Zoe nods her head, quick and short, and then pats his cheek. “Now preheat the oven.”

“Preheat the - Doc, if you don't _get_ your ass over here…”

Well. There was always try number five.




_i don’t want to think of anything else_

_now that i thought of you_

The air had smelled like rain half of the day, and of course it would choose now to drench them both.

He drove her from the _Rammer Jammer_ where they’d had lunch together to the practicr, and droplets had begun hitting them right outside the dining establishments door. Wade’s leather jacket, brought out special for the weather, grows slick with rain when he runs around the car and pushes open the umbrella, opening her door, dust sliding from the red paint of his car in the lukewarm pour.

“The last time we got caught in the rain. I seem to remember more goats.” Zoe jokes at him, blinking thick, spiky lashes while she ducks under with him. Wade wraps his other arm around her waist, wary of the heel on her boots that wasn’t as sturdy as he’d like. Especially in her condition. 

“Less talking, more walking.” Wade hurries her, getting her onto the sidewalk. “C’mon, Doc lets get you in in one piece.” 

It’s a little harder than it would be if she hadn’t been clinging so tightly to his jacket, small and trusting and very cute, but Wade stuck to his guns and made it his utmost priority to get her up those stairs with no attacks from her spotty at best balance. 

“See you after?” Zoe asks, big eyed and still squeezing his heart by just existing next to him in the rain. The whole food dye debacle is only a few days behind them, and it’s amazing to be able to touch her in public again. To stick his hand in her back pocket and nuzzle her next to the bar at the _Rammer Jammer_ and to make clear to anyone who cared to look that Wade wasn’t letting go this time. Not ever again.

“If it’s still raining, I’m gonna come pick you up okay?” Wade cups her cheek in his hand, a look on his face like she hung the moon and probably the stars too. “Baby, let me hear you say it.”

She huffs a little and rolls her eyes but Zoe also leans up on her tiptoes to kiss him slowly goodbye. The rain is salty on his lips, and she savors it a little because it’s all the more better on him. “I will! I swear!” 

When Wade licks his lips back at work later, he still tastes a little of the strawberry chapstick she sometimes dots on under her lipstick. Each time, it makes him smile.

7.

_it’s alright_

_if you want to do me wrong_

Somehow, just to spite her, Wade’s an even better kisser this time.

This time, with no desperation or place to be, it was incredible. It was mind melting, bones shaking, wet dreams are made of this _so fucking good_ and she never, ever would’ve thought she’d be doing _this_ in _this car_ when so much had happened since the last time.

They’re never going to speak of this. Ever. It will go down in history as the one time Wade actually listened to her and shut his damn trap because she’s already calling herself dumb as a post for even pursuing this line of thought far enough to get to fruition. Because he was just as stupid as her, and there was another heat wave, and Zoe wasn’t interested in pretending to be that kind of girl.

She couldn’t jump her neighbor and go all the way with him just because the thought of wearing underwear somehow raised the already unbearable heat even higher and all Zoe wanted to do was lick his abs. Because she just _couldn’t._

What she could do, was propose to Wade that she didn’t know about him but she’d been having a rocky day, and could do with a real dirty makeout session right now. _Makeout_ , that was all, Zoe had stressed, and maybe he’s still amenable because of the fake dead guy they found together, but he agreed. And the two of them were parked on Miller Road all over again, his hands rucking up her tank top and molding appreciatively over her jean shorts. 

Wade’s mouth is hot, scalding on hers, open mouthed and deep enough for Zoe to sink into and forget about the troubles of the day. He lost his shirt at some point, she couldn’t say when for the life of her, but she didn’t much care. Zoe’s hands spilled over his front, softly fingering the soft hair on his chest and dipping in the lines of his body. 

“Is this okay?” He’s panting, but he makes it far enough away from her to ask the question. If his passenger window hadn’t been healthily cracked the windows would be even muggier, but Wade’s question is less about them and more about his hand, fingertips just under the hem of her shorts.

How dare he ask.

That’s not the kind of softness that Zoe’s looking for right freaking now. Her head hurts with a threatening headache at the very occurrence of it. “Yes. No. Wade…” She widens her position as much as she can with the restraints of the car, tries to get ahold of her own breath. “Don’t - I don’t want that right now.”

“Oh, sorry.” His hands are off her instantly, and Zoe audibly groans in frustration because dammit that’s not what she’s saying. For fuck’s sake. 

“No! Don’t be.” 

“How about, instead of you acting like I can read whatever mile a minute is going through your head right now, you tell me you want.” Wade raises a brow and runs his hand back from his face, adjusts his legs in a way that he grazes the hottest part of her and she had to put real sizable effort into not moaning at it. Damn him. Making her overly sensitive, lava hot and stuck with her temples throbbing. 

“Pretend I’m one of your high school conquests.” Zoe blurts out, yanking off her hair tie so she can completely dismantle the braid his hands ruined long ago. “No thinking. None of it. Horny, and rushed between classes. I needed to get off yesterday and you’re _not_ helping enough for me to start to get pissed off in a bad way.” Wade looks like he finds this statement interesting, because his touch is back to playing across the slope of her waist, palming her ass more boldly. She takes a shuddering breath and lifts her hair off her neck for a moment. "Clothes stay on.”

“Clothes stay on.” Wade murmurs, hazel turned a shade so dark near amber that it sends another unfathomable blaze through her. “You sure have troubles saying them, but you’re not half bad at explainin’ what you want when you’re mad about it.” 

Relieved, Zoe dives back down to his mouth with renewed fervor, hips rocking over his. His left hand helpfully fists in her dark hair so it doesn’t lie along her damp neck anymore, the motion causing a moan to leak out between their mouths. The kiss turned filthy ages ago, but he waits until Wade’s licking her teeth and she’s straining against him until he slips the button open on her shorts.

“On.” She reminds him, a tremor flirting in her lust ragged voice.

“On. I didn’t forget, sweetheart. Just loosening.” Wade soothes her easily, and within moments she’s back to kissing him. If you can even call the things he was doing with his lips and tongue kissing instead of a magnificent, sinful art that Zoe was more than happy to fully appreciate. His mouth bruises and she welcomes the black and blue pleasure on her tongue.

When his fingers deftly push aside her shorts and lacy, _been_ done for lacy panties, and leisurely fills her burning wet heart with two fingers, Zoe embarrassingly almost comes on his hand then and there.

As it stands, she didn’t last too much longer after that.

5.

_but i don’t care_

_‘cause right now you’re mine_

**MCDREAMY IN HEELS:** I'm going full romcom on you when I get back. Running and jumping, leaving my suitcase behind me so we have to go back to get it, the whole nine yards.

**WADE:** what, pre doctor boy in med school didn't give you the chance to fulfill your fantasies?

**MCDREAMY IN HEELS:** The one time I went out of town he couldn't find time to pick me up sooooo no.

**WADE:** the more i hear about this ex of yours the more i am convinced that neither one of us knows what we're doing

Zoe leaves Bluebell exactly Once the first time they're together.

It's her mom's birthday, and while it was nice to see a Broadway show and eat at only places with Michelin stars, she had been surprised to find out how much of her longed for Bluebell. It didn't hurt that her boyfriend of a couple blissfully messy months was waiting there either, and his snarky comments about whatever high class elective she was enjoying wasn't nearly as much fun when he wasn't whispering it into her ear, trying to tickle her and make her laugh. The very idea of Wade not showing up to get her doesn't even cross her mind the closer her plane gets to po' boys and crazy townspeople, and she's rewarded for it when she _does_ in fact see him right through the arrival gate.

His hands are slung in the pocket of beat dark jeans, his dark gold hair is casually messy in that way he pulls off so damn well, and he looks so good in his dark green plaid that Zoe actually can't wait to fling herself at him. 

She does make a little amendment to the romcom rules, though.

"HEY DUMBASS!" Zoe yells like normal people would say 'HEY YOU' but like, romantically, and takes a running start in her cute little plane-ride flats. She can’t deny the swoop her stomach takes at the grin that splits his face when he sees her, and he’s ready to catch her right when she needs. Her tiny hands lock behind his neck and they’re kissing like they’ve practiced this before, which they obviously haven’t. Wade’s grip is solid and flirty and he gives her ass a little squeeze when he licks at her tongue. His kiss says hello with just the right amount of fire, sipping and warm, and it sends fizzles up her spine.

“How’re we doing.” He murmurs to her conspiratorially when she decides that breathing is maybe a thing they can do again. Wade’s black t-shirt is warm under her hands, a living embodiment of the Bluebell weather that she happened to miss so much, mosquitoes and gators notwithstanding. It feels terribly good to have a person to come home to.

“Definitely Kate Hudson levels.” Zoe smooths a touch down the nape of his neck and looks at him with warm brown eyes. As a finishing touch, she drops a little kiss on the tip of his nose, right where his freckles are the densest. “There! We get cuteness points too.” She risks a glance over her shoulder, gives a little frown.

“We have to get your bags now, right?” 

“Yep.” 

“Alright, well you better hold on.” Wade adjusts his grip on her and Zoe instinctively tightens her legs, eyes going a little wide.

‘’You could put me down _first - !_ ” is what Zoe tries to say, but it gets a little lost in a happy shriek when he starts moving with her still holding onto him, tilting her head back and laughing as she bounces in his hold. 

Wade doesn’t put her down the entire time until they get to his car, and they’re ridiculous and so is this, but she can’t deny that Zoe’s heart is the one thing that stays in the clouds longer than the rest of her and she knows that it’s only because of him.

  
  


19.

_had the world_

_at their fingertips_

He’s not supposed to be speakng.

Wade knows he isn’t, knows that about all of the reasons that they’d gotten this far were the direct result of the lack of sounds from his mouth. Not, it seems, sounds _caused_ by his mouth, like the sounds of their kissing in the dark. Like the humming noise that rocked in his throat and made Zoe whimper and hold onto him tighter. He’s cupping her face, and when his thumb sweeps high on her cheeks his stomach plummets at the brush of wetness he finds. 

Hell if it doesn’t crush him, personal and painful, that she’s crying. That whatever drama she’d gone through that night, it had been enough to break her a little bit and she was so desperate to something to stick it back together, even temporarily, that she’d turned to him.

Zoe hadn’t forgiven him yet.

He knew it in the so tight it was near painful grip she had on his arms, the air that ripped from her lungs when her back hit the bed. The fading mascara around eyes that seemed so fraught that if it had been a river Wade wouldn’t set foot in it. A lot of that was a direct result of the worst fuckup in a long, and aching, sordid history of fuckups, one he knew without a doubt he would regret with every breath for the rest of his life.

She might be here now, delicate and conflicted and lips tasting like wine, but Zoe wasn’t his. Probably wouldn’t be ever again, so he would have had to be an almighty kind of dumb to jeapordize any moment of this right now. 

Of course, when it came to Zoe Hart, he never had a problem making a fool of himself.

“Zoe - Zoe, look I know I’m not supposed to talk, but.” He’s broken from her mouth, but they’re still close enough that when he speaks, it thrums the air a hairsbreadth from her lips. Wade doesn’t know why he can’t pull back, why somehow he thinks that if he stays this close, his body hovering over hers in the darkness, she’ll let him speak before inevitably coming to her senses and throwing him out her house. “Do you want this? I mean are you, are you _sure_.”

Zoe tremors in his arms, already shirtless from his deft hands, hair spilled out on her sheets. His flannel is somewhere with her shirt and their shoes, but his t-shirt still remains between them, one of the last barriers that lay in the middle of them and a line they couldn’t go back from. 

At first, she won’t meet his eyes. It seems like an eternity before lashes that still stick together rise slowly up, and she’s pulling at the dark fabric.

The shirt, suddenly, is up and gone. Zoe wraps perfect legs around his waist and then she’s kissing him. Kissing him like her life depends on it, kissing him like she’s drowning and he’s the only thing keeping her afloat.

“ _Yes._ For tonight. Tonight, only.” It’s quiet, but it’s abrasively raw and Wade thinks maybe he’ll never forget that particular tone of voice. He will be able to replay it in the back of his mind, at his darkest moments, as a private, punishing reminder to never, _ever_ , let himself even think of doing something like that again. No matter how pitch black it seemed to get, the pressure and disappointment and burned dreams. None of it would compare. 

He gets her chin between his thumb and forefinger and persuades her mouth hot and open against his. There’s a rhythm between them still, melancholic and the sharpest side of bittersweet, but some part of them will always be attuned to it, and no words are spoken until the sun comes up the next day.

He didn’t say anything about it being something she’s said before, _one and done_ , because they both knew it was different, now. Wade can’t goad her into a second round this time.

(When she falls asleep, small and wrung out under his arm, Wade looks at her and breaks and thinks that no matter how hopeless it was, he would die if he didn’t at least try.)

  
  


48.

_between playing it safe_

_and taking a chance_

Call her crazy, but she doesn’t think she’s ever been worried about anything more than this since she took her MCAT’s. 

Her irrationality did tend to _leap_ when Wade was around, but this took the cake. It had been almost two years, for God’s sake. She had real patients. Everyone in town knew her name and said it with at least a positive geniality, and not disdain. Why did Zoe still feel so concerned at what they thought? Moments like this, she sometimes thinks she didn’t go to enough therapy in high school.

And don’t get Zoe wrong - it _wasn’t_ that she was ashamed of him. After all the mess and heartache it took to get here, she'd made her move. She was _done_ with skulking around, pretending she wasn’t having the best sex of her entire life with a guy that had made her laugh more than anyone ever had. She knew that the town had a tendency to be a little hard on him, whispers of wasted potential a not unfamiliar term, and it hurt her heart. The fact that she’d thought like that for so long, even through how frustrating and juvenile as he could be, and still was, made her a hold onto his hand even tighter.

It’s a day after New Years, and if it hadn’t been for the holidays she’s confident they would’ve been busted. Zoe didn’t know how, but secrets did a rather shoddy job off staying so in Bluebell, and it was a miracle that more people hadn’t discovered it before. Regardless, rumors or no, everyone was going to know today.

Wade didn’t have a shift for another couple of days, and when he rounds the car and opens the door for her to get out of his Chevy, it all feels very real. Butterflies rise up and make themselves known, a feeling that she was still a little new to feeling when it came to him. The hem of his dark brown plaid brushes her wrist as she walk together, and it stems the tide of her babbling surprisingly fast.

“We’re ready for this. I’m ready for this. Are you? Ready, I mean?” 

Hazel eyes go a little soft and sad as Wade licks his lips. “Well Doc, there is a real in the real boyfriend agreement we’re in.”

Zoe fights the urge to roll her eyes, because he’s so dumb. Of course she’s happy to be with him. She’s even wearing a bit of a statement, her favorite pair of short red boots, the black and crimson corset top under her leather jacket strapless and brave. “Shut up. It’s not even about that. I don’t know, I just. I guess I want them to like us together.”

“Well I don’t care what they think.” Before he opens the door, he pulls their hands up to his mouth and presses a gentle kiss to their joined hands, and his smile shores up Zoe’s confidence one watt at a time. “All that matters is that _you_ and _I_ like us together.”

“I do. And yeah, of course. You’re right.” Zoe tries saying out loud, like it will make them more true, but she can’t help it. She’s wired high. She still wants the townspeople to be supportive, she can’t _help_ it. It was like she was bringing her boyfriend home to meet the family for the first time, even if technically it was his family too.

Which was a little messed up, but. Small towns. Zoe had learned to deal. 

It takes a minute, but there is a sudden abundance of wide, exceedingly interested eyes turned in their direction. She blushes to the roots of her hair and curses how back in high school Wade sometimes made her feel, no matter how much she kind of liked it. 

Before Zoe could open her mouth and undoubtedly say the wrong thing, Wade gives their hands a gentle tug and bends down to her height. As much as she loves these boots, their small heel doesn’t put even a dent in the ten inches that separated them, so Zoe automatically goes on her tiptoes to meet him. And she’s really, honestly got to hand it to him - it was the perfect kiss. Wade captures her mouth with his and does some sort of magic to her with the pressure of his lips and the gentle hold he had on her jawline so that Zoe forgets that things like _worry_ even existed.

Zoe’s so busy trying to remember where she even was, blinking lashes at him slowly when he pulls away and smiling like a damn fool when a wolf whistle pierces the air. Both she and Wade turn, and somehow, it’s George. He raises his cup of iced tea to them and grins easy, and it’s the best thing that could’ve happened.

“We’re together!” Zoe lifts up their hands and shakes it along with her other arm, somehow not making her purse fall off her arm. “Yay!”

“On purpose?” Of course it’s Dash, already patting at his pockets for his recorder. Wade tenses next to Zoe and she laces her other hand over the one she already had a hold on.

“Yes, Dash. _On purpose_. Which is a great thing!” She cheers again.

“That’s right ladies, Wade Kinsella is officially off the market.” Wade gives a fake deep sigh, already leading them to a table. “Sucks that y’all missed out on all this.” Zoe smacks his arm for that after they’d both seated in the booth, and it feels right. 

Shula leans over conspiratorially from the table closest to them, though her tone is anything but quiet. “Don’t listen to Dash, the mans just bitter and lonely. I think you two make a _handsome_ couple.”

“Me too.” Wanda squeezes Zoe’s shoulder and then pulls out her notebook, smiling happily at them both. “What can I get you two lovebirds?” It’s nicer than she could’ve thought, when she nudges his leg under the table and he fits his hand over her thigh in response. 

All in all, it could’ve gone much worse.

  
  


27.

_the more i forget the reasons why_

_i don’t just stay here_

Something about this had to have been specifically designed in some sort of evil villain factory.

Wade wasn’t always a betting man, but he had no problem putting his money down on this one. He wasn’t a superhero masquerading as a bartender or anything like that, but if he’d had a nemesis or an arch enemy, this would be his kryptonite. This would render him all encompassingly weak, head empty filled only with every moment of _this_.

Zoe had been wrong, a few months ago. Wicker was undoubtedly _the best_ chair material, heavily unappreciated. None of the other rinky, thrift shop assembled pieces of deck furniture he owned possessed the ability to so comfortably fit the two of them like this, and he was endlessly, endlessly grateful for the manufacturer. He didn’t write, but in this case Wade would _happily_ pen a letter to them and thank them for giving him the opportunity to have this experience.

His girlfriend's talented, attentive lips nip gently at the cord of his throat, leaving little kisses in a meandering path from just below his ear down his jaw, his neck. Zoe is sun warm, for once, the hot day a causal factor of the second half of what was killing Wade - the fact that she was all comfortable in his lap still _the slightest bit_ damp from their dip in the pond, and she was still in her fucking bikini. She was still in her bikini and _nothing else_ and it was a good thing she was rocking her hips against his a bit because if she lifted too high anyone who was looking would catch sight of Wade’s very noticeable, very large tent in his swim trunks. 

Which, you had to cut him slack for. The bikini that had wrecked Wade’s sense of anything _but_ getting his hands all over her was going to be burned in his mind’s eye way past when his real ones started to fail. Cheesy dork that she was, of course she owned a yellow polka dot one, butterflies across her breasts and tying behind her neck. The thin string that tied at the crest of her hipbones constantly fell prey to the wandering, turned on touch of Wade’s thumb wondering exactly how tightly it was done, and how much it would take to make it fall open.

He was but a man after all, a man who hadn’t ever been able to have any control over his body and mind (and hearts) reaction to Zoe Hart since the day she interrupted him mid Guitar Hero.

Some things, like the way he wished she would never stop moving her bikini bottom barriered heat over him, and how he wanted to do something, anything for her just to make sure she knew that he knew exactly what a damn great thing her very smile against his skin was, were to be expected.

She sucks his earlobe into his mouth for a second and Wade can’t control the immediate groan, hands flexing on the near gloriously bare bell of her hips. Zoe’s laughter puffs warm against his neck, gets trapped in the water still slipping down his defined chest and sinks right into his soul.

“You like that, huh?” Zoe’s tease tastes good when she kisses him, one of his hands coming up to cup the back of her head, diving fingers into her thick mass of hair. She had tried to keep it up, tying into a bun and intending to just sunbathe and trade verbal jabs with him on a rare Saturday that they were both off work on, but Wade had put his very considerable talents to work convincing her to get in the pond with him. And once Zoe was in with him, there was no chance in hell that they weren’t going to be dunking each other. 

“Look at you, acting like you don’t know _exactly_ how much I like that.” Wade massages at the back of her neck, eyes heavy lidded and very relaxed, dimples lazy as they get revealed. “Bein’ all cute and sexy and shit.”

She kisses him slow, long and drawn out enough that his spine melts all over again. When Zoe returns to her previous work on his neck, sucking at his pulse point, little drops of flame on every spot of his strong shoulders her lips make her way to, Wade’s grateful that he doesn’t have a thing to do today other than spend time with her. Even if he had, he would’ve said fuck them all, fuck the responsibilities and the adulthoodand the chance that Lavon or any other townsperson could inopportunely happen by. 

His soul might leave his body because Dr. Zoe Hart is leaving hickeys that bridge the smattering of freckle clusters on his pectorals, and if it did, so what? He was the luckiest bastard in Bluebell and any other town in a million mile radius.

Her hand slips between them, inquisitive and saucy as it plucks at the elastic band of the trunks, and Wade can’t help it. He bucks into her touch, hard, the bare muscles of his back rippling as he was forced to change the way he was sitting, Zoe’s tinkling laughter bouncing off the pond that separated their homes. 

“Hey.”

“What up.” Wade scrubs a hand over his face and looks at her

Zoe moves in even closer, play bites right next to his ear and sends another impossible wave of arousal over him. “I’m thinking, maybe we should get out of these wet clothes?” 

Before she finishes the last word, he’s in motion. How Wade gets her from his lap to over his shoulder, she is too flustered to know, but when she clutches his back and laughs his name, neither is thinking about it. “With ideas like that, I’m thinkin’ maybe there’s something to this whole college thing you went to. A humdinger of an A+ thought, you’d think my people would say.”

Zoe gets busy trying to shove her hands down the back of his swim trunks, homing in on his ass. “Remind me, why aren’t you naked yet?”

_More_ good points. Wade thinks that Zoe might be the smartest person to ever let him get close enough to touch. It makes something funny scratch for attention, back in that thing in his chest that the Doc would call a heart, but then she _does_ get a hand on his sculpted cheek, and gives it an appreciative squeeze that requires swift, immediate, retaliation, and there is no more thinking. 

43.

_might not be_

_quite healed already_

It’s such a little thing.

The smallest, most off the cuff, stupid thing for her to be thinking about like this.

Especially, you know, considering the circumstances. Being a Wilkes meant that events were aplenty to enough to be easily overwhelmed, so Zoe and Joel often picked and chose. With his writing schedule, and her time at the practice, they valued their quiet nights more often than not. This particular birthday party for an uncle or other had involved a four versus four cornhole game. Wade, Zoe, Vivian, and Joel made up one whole team, and were an unexpected powerhouse. When they won, Wade had crowed loud and kissed them all. Joel on the cheek, Zoe on the forehead, Vivian on the mouth in a way that Zoe felt like a ghost so strongly he had to look away.

It’s tiny.

It means nothing.

Zoe’s _happy_. She knows. She swears.

(She’s got to be.)

Joel’s leaving for LA in a week, and she’s in panic mode. Desperate to hold onto him, to anything she cared about close to her. That, in a way bigger than she’d been expecting after all this time, involved Wade in a big way. A way that Zoe was realizing seemed to be larger than it should be. It burns her forehead for the rest of the night, and all the next day, and she wonders if it's the thing she imagines is a representation to the feelings for him that she’d be happy denying til kingdom come. It haunts her, and she can’t shake it.

She can’t shake it so bad that when her heart breaks, slowly, in the weeks later, it's one of the few things she clings to to get her through.

When he nestles the box of fries on her lap and does it again, on the opposite side, Zoe cries even harder.

It feels better, but it hurts in a brand new way.

  
  


12.

_when you touch me_

_you rock me_

It’s been a while since Wade’s been yanked so forcefully into the owners office at the _Rammer Jammer_ but he’s been nervous enough all day that it still caught him completely off guard.

Zoe tugs him by his waist and pushes him into the door, turning the lock and sliding her hands into the back pockets of his jeans. She leans against him, straining for his mouth, and even half out of it Wade doesn’t hesitate to close the distance. The kiss starts like a greeting and melts into something that explains why Zoe made sure they wouldn’t be interrupted.

“What - what are you doin’?” Wade laughs, smoothing his hands down the sides of loose a line dress. It’s only been just over nine weeks, and she’s not quite showing yet, and he can’t say he hasn’t been thinking about it. Dreaming about what it would look like to see her carrying the kid they’d made together against all odds. The material the dress was made out of was that pleasant kind of thick softness that would’ve persuaded anymore to want to run their hands over Zoe’s curves.

Not, that, of course, Wade would ever let any of said people get _remotely_ close enough to even imagine it. 

She’s wearing black high tops and her hair is in a ponytail and Wade wants to wrap it around his hand and see her pupils blow wide like they always did at the motion. He’s been gentler this time around during their naughtier times in the bedroom, constantly aware of the bean sized thing Zoe had in her tummy that she insisted wasn’t as fragile as he thought at this stage, but that doesn’t stop his mind from going places. Places he knew Zoe's dirty mind was just as a big fan of.

It’s her fault, of course, that he’s even _thinking_ about this, thanks to that straight from Aphrodite kiss she’d laid on him the moment he was in the room. That, Wade figured pretty easily. He wasn’t quite as dense as he looked, in case it wasn’t widely known.

Either way, Wade appreciated it. Really he did.

He’d been nervous the past couple of days, stressed by a meeting he’d set with the Bluebell Bank and scheduled today. Now that Wade’s life had completely settled a little, Zoe and future at his side, after talking it through with her he’d decided to make some moves on the event room he and Lemon had talked about so long ago. Even with both of their salaries, Wade needed a loan, and everyone remembered exactly how well _that_ went last time. He’s different now, at least, leagues grown from that kid who’d wasn’t ready for any kind of responsibility.

Wade’s wearing a tie Zoe bought him just for the occasion, and she’d already given him plenty of kisses for good luck. AB and Lemon had given him a joint pep talk on how to keep his foot out of his mouth and George and Lavon had gone on a run with him this morning to try and keep his head clear. He appreciated all the support, he did, but none of them would be with him at the meeting, he’d insisted. Even if he and Zoe weren’t still keeping it on the downlow, any cover they were holding onto would’ve certainly been blown if she’d gone with him.

She wasn’t going with him, but she was here, Now. Pulling him to the chair behind the oak desk that once been Wally’s pride and joy and sitting him down. “I know,” Zoe started, running a familiar hand through his hair. “That you’re still wired, and worried, because of the meeting. I don’t know how many ways I can tell you that you’re going to _kill_ it in that interview, because I believe in you. So, I’m trying a different tactic. I’m going to make sure that you go to that meeting completely chilled out and ready to turn on that famous Kinsella charm.”

Wade eyes her a little warily, especially when she kisses him quick and then pulls his legs open, head cocked a bit to side until she’s satisfied with the sprawl of them. It takes the drop of a pillow on the floor, clearly previously stolen from the tiny couch in the room, for things to fall into place for him. “Zoe. What’re you doin’.”

“What does it look like, dummy?” Zoe kneels on the pillow and settles back on her heels, looking quite comfortable. It occurs to Wade that the ponytail had been a strategic decision rather than appearance wise, and his body, traitorous to the moment, has no problem rising to the occasion. “Don’t say anything. Just let me take care of you.”

“Zoe -” Wade tries again, his voice is faltering a little with her fingers so deftly undoing his belt. Zoe Hart with a singular focus is a force to be reckoned with, and he is trying very hard to stick his guns. He doesn’t know the rules on your pregnant, currently secret girlfriend and probably life partner, wanting to give you head. Suddenly, his white henley feels too warm, and he’s helping her get them off his legs. “You don’t have to.”

“Wade. Honey.” Zoe does that lip purse thing people do when they think you’re cute and a little dumb, which is just the flavor of condescension that worked for them. “I know that. But I want to!”

_She wants to._ That was the core of the whole situation. Zoe knew him, at the end of the day, and she was right - this probably would settle him down right. He didn’t think there wasn’t a man on this planet that didn’t feel better after coming, but he was one of a precious few (others, he made concentrated efforts never to think about) to know that at this particular sex activity, Zoe could make your spirit feel like it left your body because you can’t _ever_ possibly feel better than this. It's not like he _didn't_ want Zoe to suck his dick, because he did. As long as blood pumped through his veins that was an activity he would always be down to do with her. 

He's just not sure if he's allowed to be selfish, or even if wanting it is selfish at all.

Thankfully, he was with a woman who sometimes knew what he was thinking better than he did. The soft brush of her lips on his sculpted stomach as Zoe teased right above her true goal have him tensing hot, his resistance dying a swift and complete death.

“Well. If you’re _sure_ you want to.” Wade gave up, letting the hunger run to the front of his eyes, tucking a strand of escapes brown silk behind her ear. “I learned a long time that it was better for everyone involved if you just got what you wanted.” Those lucky stars at work again, he swore, giving him a woman like this. 

“Did you?” Zoe hooks black nails on the waistband of his briefs and gets them about to where his pants are. “You’re still talking.” 

She gives him a little lick, and it’s enough for him to clap his hand over his mouth in advance. The next time Zoe kisses him, it’s the secret intimate kind that lovers give in all sorts of shadowy, secret places.

(The hidden lip gloss marks around his dick gives Wade and his confidence a magic edge. He nails the meeting, and he repays Zoe’s calming influence on her bed when they celebrate later that night.)

38.

_for worse_

_or for better_

They fought.

And also they didn’t.

It was odd, because in some ways they were constantly hovering around only the idea of coming for each others throats. Teasing and joking with Wade came as naturally to her as it did to him, and it was a switch Zoe would never want to turn off, even if she could. She hoped he always gave her just the right amount of shit.

In that context, it had to be explained that when they actually did _have words_ it felt completely different. It whooshed like a cold wind through her, when Bluebell’s sun couldn’t warm her and all she could think about was how she was going to make it up to him. Wade screwed up sometimes too, massively could, but somehow Zoe always managed to make it worse. It was her cursed talent or something, when it came to him. 

This time, it’s both of their faults. A slipped out word, a snapped response, unexpected enough for them both to blink, surprised at each other in Lavon’s kitchen. Thankfully, Lavon wasn’t there to be both concerned and exasperated at their behavior, but it shed light on another of their cracks. She thought it was stupid, but it meant more to Wade than she’d realized, and they forced themselves to talk about it, after a lot of dancing around the subject.

When they’re done, Zoe beelines right for his arms, their end-talk hugs probably the best part of all the hard adulting they were doing to help their relationship work. He might look like all that ropey muscle and rock solid core would make Wade a bad hugger, but he’s stellar at it. Enfolds you in close, makes you feel like you’re the most important person in the world. Wade smooths the hair at the top of her head, and when she tilts up her chin for a close kiss, it tastes a lot like the _I love you_ that neither of them have said yet.

It’s more than Zoe ever realized they would have.

**Author's Note:**

> i ugly sob a lot BECAUSE I LOVE THEM!


End file.
